ESXi, Veeam, and Fiber Channel Assistance

[wabash2015]

Hello,

I've got an environment that consists of a single ESXi host and a Dell ME4024 SAN using direct connect fiber channel. I'm looking at setting up a Veeam solution by which we'll have high availability. I'm planning on installing an additional ESXi host (both with two dual-port HBAs) and Synology NAS, both of which are fiber channel capable. I'm familiar with this type of configuration using iSCSI but am not very familiar with fiber channel.

My question is as follows:

If I want my Veeam backup server to be a virtual machine running on one of my ESXi hosts, how can I present the LUN on my Synology NAS to the Veeam backup server as a backup repository in a way that makes sense? Veeam does not recommend configuring your backup repository on top of a VMDK, so simply adding my NAS LUN as a datastore to vCenter seems like it isn't an option.

Could I use PCIe passthrough on my Veeam backup server VM settings for the fiber channel HBA that points directly to the LUN on the NAS, then configure that storage as ReFS or NTFS? Or should I do something else?

Thanks for any and all advice!

[Origin 2000]

Having a NAS like Synology or QNAP with Fibre Channel is very uncommon and unlikely. It its the true you need an additional FC HBA in one of your ESXi Hosts and use PCIe passtrough which isnt supportet in that way or a fabric which means not direct attach any more and instead you need FC Switch gear.

Are you sure that your NAS havent SFP+ NICs instead FC ones?

Iam pretty sure your NAS also offer ethernet ports and than you have 3 options
1. NAS export or iSCSI Target and your ESXi can use this than a VMFS Datastore
2. The NAS just offer a SMB Share and your VBR Server use this as a repository
3. Setup an iSCSI Target on your NAS and mount this WITHIN a VM. You should format the volume with ReFS when using Windows or XFS when a Linux is used

I vote for option 3.

Regards,
Joerg

[doktornotor]

Synology claims to support a couple of FC adapters on some of their models... still wouldn't recommend it.

https://kb.synology.com/en-us/DSM/tutor ... HA_cluster
https://www.synology.com/en-us/products ... ba_support
https://www.synology.com/en-us/compatib ... s_adapters